The present invention disclosed herein relates to a substrate transfer apparatus and method, and a substrate processing apparatus.
A robot is used which transfers a substrate in order to put the substrate in a process chamber for substrate processing, such as etching, ashing and cleaning and take a processed substrate out of the process chamber.
When transferring the substrate, methods of holding the substrate by the robot are roughly divided into an edge grip method and a vacuum suction method. According to the edge grip method, the robot grips the edge of the substrate to fix the substrate. According to the vacuum suction method, an arm of the robot includes a suction hole, and when the suction hole is in contact with the substrate and is closed, the substrate is fixed to the suction hole by the decrease of the internal pressure of a closed space.
When the substrate is supplied, a typical substrate transfer robot using the vacuum suction method attempts to suction the center of the substrate, and when suction is unsuccessful, the robot re-attempts to suction the center of the substrate that is the same point. When the suction of the substrate is unsuccessful even after the robot has attempted to suction a predetermined number of times, an apparatus for processing a substrate has set off the alarm to inform a worker that the supply of the substrate is unsuccessful and thus it is no longer possible to perform the process.
However, there is a limitation in that a typical substrate processing apparatus always sets off the alarm without consideration of each case to stop the process, even when it is difficult to suction the central part of the substrate because there is a foreign material on the center of the substrate or the central region of the substrate is bent, but it is possible to suction other regions of the substrate.